Inching nearer each and every moment, feel the rhythm of our drums.
Searching, seeking forward thinking, a dawning of mind that we create.
A border breaking for the taking, words that remind us to awake.
I don't need a bold commandment; I've got one of my own.
Stand alone.
Let's watch Babylon fall, our captivity.
Vices of the kingdom, exile in luxury.
You'll hear the darkest voice say bow before, crawl beneath, dance around my altar, if you grovel long enough.
Someday I will let you be as pure.

02. Self Portraits Of The Instincts

Lyrics by Nathan Ells

Welcome home, an interrupted kitchen fight
cut the ties.. You lay your blame in a god's name.
Casualties must be defined now,
before I trust you for a cure,
because I'm not so sure..
You're not sorry..
You're not sorry..

By burden of blood we saw reflections of who we are,
As the knowledge that burns in our hearts takes charge.
Blessings made at a house in the distance.
An unworthy authority looking to find a worthy culprit.
Accounting lost, stranded hindsight, words were not enough.
Repeat the cycle with devils in your veins.
More than simply shaken, a line divides.
Blood ties are forsaken, grudges still are found in kindred we are bound.
So deep in our blood, ages come, ages go, never freed.
Never.
That's what you told me.
Time and again we have them down on their knees.
Beg for mercy, beg, time and again, how many times will I be called to feel this rage?
How many times will I be taken to that place?
No peace of mind until the seas run dry.
Forced to inflict these scars, reflections of who we are.
A legacy carried on too long.

03. Nocturne

Lyrics by Nathan Ells

Hollow self indulgence leading the way
In the wake of intent that day
At the fault line, at the fault line we were
Searching for answers
Filthy crimes, power play
Grasping for our lessons overthrown
What you've gone and done now,
It's hard to get over
Events of the past have carried
A lasting grudge toward a pure heart
I'm calling out a false hero
Lay your plans,
I'll play Rome, false martyr, take a stand
Lay your plans.
With broken heart, I've finally become a man
Past the sights and the sound
Cloak and dagger are found
No wonder here, just an echo resounding
Hardship owns all that remains
Red queen, a fallen Knight on the way that day
Caught in the act, right in our midst,
A snake in the grass. No honor,
As night fell on my soul.

04. Crossing The Rubicon

Lyrics by Nathan Ells

Of all the times I've been disrespected, you'd think it'd be no surprise.
Learning lessons, all the precious treasures take all that you've got.
I'll take your ready hand with a ready blade.
I'm dead set to make you lie in the bed you've made.
Paid in full, I'll take it from your pride,
I don't know what you thought, but you've gone past the line,
and you've got me wrong.
The time has come, your song has long been sung.
Brought down, you won't have long to go.
I'm not cutting a loss again.
An hourglass of sand and Ill be on time, inform the rest.
Run as fast as you can. Hell's coming for you.
Try to strike and then slip away,
but I won't let you leave without feeling an equal pain.
You'll see, because Ill make you see.
Left in my council you'll know what it means to respect me.
Once I've caught you alone, I'll teach you all you need to know.
Pray, once I've caught you alone,
that I teach you all you need to know.
Each of us has boundaries, everyone has got a breaking point.
I wish I held desire solely to right this wrong,
take careful tones urging the dawn to come,
make every word worth what it takes in turn,
but I can't go on with my faith interrupted.
How can I look the other way?
You've shown me there is no other way out.

06. Mea Culpa

Lyrics by Nathan Ells

We shared a common trade of reasoning out the years
Of failed affections and faces to forget.
You should have told me that the ties
That made it all worth the while
Were quickly becoming a race to the blame.
I tried to gain the advantage over you.
Its plain to see there's nothing I could do or say.
I tried to gain the advantage over you.
A sad parade with nothing left to lose or gain.
I could feel it coming
Like a train wreck, rumbling off the tracks.
With every ounce of strength
I strained to pay back that dirty money
And the fortune abstract, but there's no feeling left intact.
For the victim is now a god,
Doling out judgment, strike with divining rod.
I don't want to get involved, looks like you're doing fine
But when I lay up at night, I can feel your eyes.
And I can see your eyes, and I go rushing in to a world inside
Where there's none in between, and nothing can be denied.
Struck down and stripped of pride,
That I could forgive you for once in our lives
But I failed, and I don't know why, I'll never know why.
I failed and I don't know why.

07. Movement From Discord

Lyrics by Nathan Ells

Pressure...
Pressure is all we've got.
The less you know the more you strain to reach out to see.
In the balance there's nothing free.
It took the best of them down with a single blow.
Brace yourself for the challenge ahead, don't waste your breath on what you know.
Brace yourself for the challenge ahead, you've got to pace yourself the last to go.
I journeyed to the edge of all my tears and counted every night I fought alone/bartered.
I pray that you could feel like I do, never to endure a heart of stone/remain a martyr.
The less you know, you're getting shadowed by vanity.
Somehow rage becomes clarity.
You'll find it deep in my family.
It took the best of us down.
All of your enemies are out to change you, the greatest weapon of etiquette.
I traded serenity, to realize the struggle of knowing what I could get.
I took part in a dream where nobody told me where to go or who to be.
It opened my eyes.
Never will I know of peace again.
Pressure is building to no end.
Pressure is all we've got.
This won't end in failure.

08. Channel Detritus

Lyrics by Nathan Ells

Don't fight it, look at it, another setback to slow you, another day in vain, passing on, move along, another dream is gone.
You see that's how it goes in the game.
We play only to learn and train for our next mistake.
To heal and break, growing strong in the wake.
Seems like in no one I can rely.
Don't you tell me I won't survive?
Thousands tell you that you won't survive.
I'll survive, I'll survive.
You have to pay the cost impossible to make the impossible possible.
You can't just throw it away. fading one day to the next, tamed by a siren song, tempted to belong to an ordinary life... ask yourself why.
Don't you let them pave your way, don't you play their game.
Don't you pray for rain, look inside at what you'll find.
It's all in your mind, regain an honor disappearing.
It's a power, a birthright disappearing, it's a call to save what remains.
Fools regret until they die, forgive yourself back to life.

09. Polaris

Lyrics by Nathan Ells

I'm not ashamed to say, I take pleasure in, burning all of my epitaphs.
Turning the sands of time into glass.
Push through here and beyond, endure every trial, breaking in from the outside.
Back to the struggle to then find strength in a starting over.
I vowed not to spend my life comforted by enclosure.
Better to cry out in pain than be uninvolved, silent and lame to the life that beckons us.
Siren's calling me over the hills and trails.
There to wander so restlessly, bold and tireless, seeking to broaden the lines dividing identity.
the task at hand: to unleash the bondage of endless lives, pressures, actions, questions, answers giving birth to questions, unfolding like the petals of a lotus, eternal longing until we die no more.
Because you never hold on to the spoils you've won.
All your triumphs in vain, if you cant embrace a change.
All the paths I've been down, I still have never found something lasting through the years.
But all these worthless fears, that mean nothing.
Compare your life, your loves, to the vastness of the endless stars above.

10. Echelons To Molotovs

Lyrics by Nathan Ells

Standing, strong and tall.
Outside hear their call.
Tear down the wall, upper echelon, blackest of them all.
Sold us into sorrow, you love to watch the weaker ones crawl don't pity our cause, for the laws you've disowned.
Pagan prophesy has come to be.
Thrown Molotovs mark the fall of a throne.
And dead philosophy, we're not to be owned.
Paid slaves heed to the masters voice, the scales offset without a choice.
Debts of the spirit.
No chance of your own conscience turning the tide.

12. Vela, Together We Await The Storm

Lyrics by Nathan Ells

A story without a name.
A desert journey that we became.
Another test of our power overcoming on a black day.
Appalling how they're running for the honor like a campaign.
To be the leaders of a phony dead scene in a magazine.
I always figured there was something more.

Gone, so many friends and lovers
so far, nothing to show in return.

They'll take it all back, all those empty words.
I'll show the dregs where all their slander has led, if it takes my whole life, for all the tears that I have shed they'll take it back, I'm making a pact.
They'll take it back, I'm making a promise.
I'm eager to the task, exposing all who wear a mask.

It must be done.

The storm yet to come binds us as one.
Through it all, loneliness and adversity, failure and injustices only guide us on our way.
So pry, you won't be finding a faker, nor will an opportune moment arise.